


(and you feel like) a place to sleep when it's late

by wolfwithpanthereyes



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s04e11 And the Trial of the One, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hugs, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Team as Family, possibly pre-OT3 if you want to read it that way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 01:50:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13560129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfwithpanthereyes/pseuds/wolfwithpanthereyes
Summary: They go home.





	(and you feel like) a place to sleep when it's late

**Author's Note:**

> **Major 4x11 spoilers ahoy**
> 
> Takes place after the Librarians hand in their resignations in 4x11 under the pretense that the rest of the episode didn't happen (so this is technically AU? Gosh I hope so. Guess we'll have to wait and see what happens in 4x12.)
> 
> There was going to be more details about why the three of them all live under the same roof but I decided to leave those out.
> 
> Title from 'Home' by Deluka.

They hand in their resignation letters. They go home. 

(The house they shared had never been home before. It had been just that: a house, more of a pit-stop to rest and recuperate than anything else. The Library had been home.

The Library wasn’t home any more.)

They kick their shoes off in the entrance. Cassandra is still half-leaning on Ezekiel for support, his arm around her waist with a tenderness that Jacob hasn’t seen from him before. Cassandra managed to gulp back her sobs on the way here and now there’s an uneasy stillness between them like glass stretched too thin, waiting to be shattered. 

“Guess that’s it,” Jacob mutters, punching the glass and letting it fall in shards. He heads to the sofa and lets himself collapse, yanking at the tie around his neck. “No more Library. No more us.” 

It’s the wrong thing to say. Cassandra clutches a hand to her mouth almost immediately, clearly fighting back a fresh wave of tears, and Ezekiel glares at him. 

“Stone. Mate.” 

“What do you want me to say?” Jacob says, and the words come out with more force than he intended, almost in a shout. It startles him, but he can’t take them back, and more so, he doesn’t want to. He’s _allowed_ to be angry, for Christsake! “That we’ll just find a new library to take us? That we’ll get to keep playing happy families?” He gets the tie free and throws it to the ground: it flutters pitifully and curls on the carpet at his feet. “Face it, Jones, this isn’t just Jenkins. This isn’t just the Library. This is-” Something catches in his throat, fast and hard, and he can’t say anything further. He couldn’t even if he wanted to. 

He can’t let himself cry in front of them. Not now. 

“This is what?” Ezekiel demands, because of course he’s not going to let this go. Cassandra pulls away from him, folding into herself and shaking, and Ezekiel doesn’t protest, merely drops his arms to his sides and curls his hands into fists like he’s ready to take on the world to protect her. 

_To protect himself, more like,_ Jacob thinks, and then instantly hates himself for thinking it. Ezekiel had stood in front of him in the trial and asked Jacob to kill him and _meant it_. There was no coming back for the Great Ezekiel Jones persona after that. 

Cassandra pads over to the couch, still trembling as she drops down next to Jacob. Without thinking, he holds an arm out; a second later she’s shoved her face into his shoulder, her arms tight around his torso like she’s trying to bury into him. Even through his layers of clothes, her cheeks are hot. “Don’t answer him,” she mumbles against him, or at least that’s what Jacob figures she says - her voice is all choked up and she’s going to leave mascara stains on his waistcoat. Jacob doesn’t give a damn about the waistcoat. 

Ezekiel is still on the defensive, glaring down at them, but he must have heard Cassandra because the tension in his shoulders softens. 

“Jones?” Jacob says quietly, and holds out his other arm. 

He doesn’t have to wait long before Ezekiel is beside him. Jacob lets his arm rest on Ezekiel’s shoulders and Ezekiel reaches up to grab his hand, their fingers entwining in a way that feels far too natural for it to be their first time holding hands. 

The three of them stay like that a while. It’s a different kind of stillness, now - Cassandra’s breathing slows, hot and heavy against his shoulder like a heartbeat. Ezekiel is still but his grip on Jacob’s hand is firm, unrelenting. 

“Jake,” Ezekiel finally says - he barely ever calls Jacob anything but Stone - “we’ve lost Jenkins. I’m not losing you too, you hear me? You or Cass. We’re a team. Librarians forever. With or without the bloody Library.”

Jacob doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t want to point out that it’s unlikely they’ll be sticking around together. Doesn’t want to mention that sometimes he looks at them now and tenses, afraid they’ll suddenly have knives in their hands and a cackle in their eyes. Doesn’t want to say he couldn’t sleep last night with their voices asking him to kill them ringing in his ears. 

The nightmares are hard to believe with Cassandra and Ezekiel here beside him now, but they’re not going to end anytime soon. Jacob’s sure of that. 

He hasn’t asked what nightmares they went through. He doesn’t want to know what kind of monster they see him as. 

He breathes in deeply, once, twice, and turns to press his forehead into Ezekiel’s hair. He can admit to at least one truth. “We’ll see, Jones. But I gotta say…. I don’t wanna lose you two either.” 

“Me either,” Cassandra mumbles, in an impossibly small voice. Her breathing had become so regular Jacob had almost thought she was sleeping. “I can’t - I can’t-” 

Jacob squeezes her shoulders and she swallows hard, falling silent again. 

“It’s settled, then,” Ezekiel says firmly. “We’re staying together. That’s final.” 

Despite himself, Jacob’s mouth twitches into a smile. “Stubborn to the end, eh, Jones?” 

“You bet, Cowboy.” Ezekiel reaches his other hand to where Cassandra’s are clasped at Jacob’s side, holding both of her hands as best he can in the one. 

(The three of them had been a team since the beginning. They solved things. They argued. They always came back together. Whatever it was they had, it _worked_.

Maybe

Maybe team wasn’t the right word for what they were to each other anymore. Maybe he'd been too damn slow on the uptake for this one.)

Jacob closed his eyes, squeezed Ezekiel’s hand, pulled Cassandra closer. 

(It didn’t matter that the Library wasn’t home anymore.

Wherever Ezekiel Jones and Cassandra Cillian were? 

_That_ was home.)


End file.
